Murfreesboro mosque foes press delusional lawsuit

OUR VIEW

Opponents of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro are taking their witch hunt to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Note to the plaintiffs: Pitchforks and torches are not allowed in government buildings.

With a 49-page document filled with fabrications, this group hopes to persuade justices to hear its civil lawsuit, which claims that the mosque, which opened a year ago, is intended to teach and spread Shariah law in Tennessee.

The plaintiffs also would have you believe that the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, which for 30 years has been a house of worship in Murfreesboro (although in a much smaller facility), is somehow is connected to Muslim terrorist groups.

This farce of a lawsuit would be sad, really, except that the plaintiffs might convince some casual observers that there is some shred of truth in it. After all, they began their journey through the courts with an argument that at least appeared plausible: that perhaps the Rutherford County Planning Commission mishandled the zoning approval and notification process for the Islamic Center.

But when that turned out not to be the case, it was the mosque opponents' last flirtation with reality.

One of the suggestions that lawyers for mosque opponents are making now is that the county should have "someone else take over" the year-old center. So, the plaintiffs' response to the imaginary threat of Shariah law is to confiscate private property without cause, as the Nazi regime did in Germany?

The people behind this lawsuit are behaving in an offensive way to the decent, law-abiding people of Rutherford County, which includes whose who worship at the Islamic Center. And it should stop.

Plaintiffs insinuate that there are criminal activities taking place at the center. There has been not been even one criminal complaint against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in its 30 years. The only criminal act that has occurred was when someone vandalized the mosque construction site. That is the only terrorist activity taking place in Murfreesboro.

Plaintiffs have nothing to back up their paranoid allegations. The state Supreme Court should send them home empty-handed.